2012 in Review – As seen from the Bleachers – Part 2: July – December

We continue this week with Part II of VFTB’s Annual Year in Review for 2012. If you missed Part I, don’t worry, you didn’t miss much. But you can check it out here. Let’s continue now with the Year in Review. Don’t skip ahead to December and spoil the surprise ending, okay?

July: The world becomes glued to their TV sets as the London Olympic Games take center stage. The Games’ most memorable moment comes during its Opening Ceremonies, when Queen Elizabeth makes a spectacular parachuting entrance into the stadium. Later in the games, however, Her Royal Majesty is ejected from the women’s javelin toss competition when one of her Corgis tests positive for steroids.

Unemployment continues to slowly abate as the USA posts its 28th consecutive month of job growth. Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney claims that if it were not for Obama’s failed economic policies, the nation’s unemployment rate would be negative 10% by now. Obama offers to buy Romney a new calculator.

Physicists the world over are ecstatic at the long-sought-after discovery of the elusive Higgs boson particle by CERN researchers. Scientists project it will be another 25 years however before anyone without a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics will have the vaguest idea what a Higgs boson is or how it can be used to blow up Iran. Dr. Sheldon Cooper is unimpressed.

August: Both major political parties hold their presidential conventions as the election enters the home stretch. Republicans nominate Willard Mitt Romney as their flag bearer, narrowly edging out Clint Eastwood’s chair. Romney creates history by becoming the first presidential candidate ever nominated named after a baseball glove.

The Mars Rover Curiosity lands on Mars. Images from the red planet confirm what has longed been believed – there are no signs of intelligent life on Mars, causing scientists to draw startling comparisons with the surface of Mississippi.

Renowned medical expert and Missouri Representative Todd Akin reveals his breakthrough findings that female victims of legitimate rape have a way of preventing pregnancy. Just 10 weeks later Missourians will find a legitimate way to prevent the outgoing Congressman from being elected to the Senate.

September: In a game-changing move guaranteed to snare the entire top 1% of voters, GOP nominee Mitt Romney is captured in a secret video telling an audience of affluent donors that he does not care about the 47% of Americans who don’t pay taxes, leaving him a comfortable 53% of Americans and running mate Paul Ryan who have not yet become completely alienated and offended by his campaign.

A hitherto unknown South Korean hip hop singer named Psy creates a You Tube viral sensation with his playful music video Gangnam Style, surpassing Justin Bieber’s Baby as the most watched You Tube video in history. Psy is now the most famous person in all of South Korea. Interestingly, no one in North Korea has ever heard of him – in part because North Korea is not scheduled to have Internet access until 2019.

October: With the campaign in its final weeks, the presidential debates take center stage. Obama downs an entire bottle of Vicks NyQuil twenty minutes before the first debate and becomes temporarily comatose, giving Romney a boost in the polls. Romney later announces that his first act as president will be to nominate investment firm Goldman Sachs as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, reminding voters that corporations are people too.

GOP Vice-Presidential running mate Paul Ryan, in an act of selfless compassion, visits an Ohio soup kitchen against its director’s wishes and re-cleans dishes that have already been cleaned, for a humanitarian photo op. The Fox video doesn’t do justice to his six-pack abs of steel.

In an October surprise nobody saw coming, Obama campaign strategists conspire with Mother Nature to steal the election. Without any approval from NOAA, in what many Republican pundits call a cheap shot, Obama launches Super Storm Sandy on the eastern seaboard in a crass effort to divert TV coverage from Mitt Romney’s campaign visits to Elks Club lodges in Wisconsin where he performs stirring renditions of America the Beautiful. Obama accepts NJ Governor Christie’s Facebook Friend request.

November: Political pollster Nate Silver correctly calls 52 out of 52 states, not to mention Guam, in predicting an Obama win in a 332 – 206 electoral rout of his GOP rival. Conservative pundits debunk half-baked theories for the loss such as Romney’s failure to connect with women, blacks, Hispanics, or anyone under 25, his 47% comment, or his constant changing of positions to suit his audience, concluding that the real reason Romney lost is only because the guy they hired to execute their fail-safe voter suppression strategy accidentally succeeded in suppressing the wrong party’s vote.

Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson breaks records for donations to political campaigns, having spent almost $70 billion in the 2012 election – all of it on losing candidates. Adelson does almost as well betting on the election as he did when he put $5 million on Queen Elizabeth to win the javelin toss at the London Games.

Highly decorated general and recently appointed CIA Director David Petraeus resigns in disgrace after revealing he had been carrying on an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell, causing some military analysts to question whether Petraeus’ famous Iraq “surge” penetration strategy may have had a different agenda than previously stated.

December: After 80 years in print, Newsweek plans to discontinue publishing its print edition at the end of this month, to the great sadness of Editor Tina Brown and five middle-aged lesbian political activists from San Francisco.

The National Hockey League’s four-month lockout shows no end in sight, with both sides still far apart. Owners have rejected players’ demands for free rides on the Zamboni machine in between periods. Meanwhile, players have rejected owners’ demands that players shower and shave at least once a season.

Just when it appears the U.S. economy is about to careen off the so-called Fiscal Cliff, economic disaster is averted as the End of the World comes to pass in the nick of time, on December 21, just as the ancient Mayan calendar had prophesized.

Thanks to the cataclysmic apocalypse, members of Congress no longer have to worry about breaking their pledge to Grover Norquist or wonder how entitlement cuts will impact their chances for re-election. So it looks like Congress dodged a bullet.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. Good luck on Judgment Day, everybody!

PS: If you enjoyed this week’s post, please let me know by sharing it on Facebook, posting a comment or giving it a. If it turns out the end of the world does not actually happen on December 21, then I hope to see you back here in January 2013. Either way, Happy Holidays.